


And even in death I'll stand brave for my love

by Jazz_intown



Series: And when the sky's falling apart, who will hold my hand? [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: All Platonic - Freeform, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Night before the 16th, We all know how it ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:15:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27765823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazz_intown/pseuds/Jazz_intown
Summary: It's the night before the final battle over Manburg. The ravine's never been colder.
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot
Series: And when the sky's falling apart, who will hold my hand? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122893
Kudos: 10





	And even in death I'll stand brave for my love

**Author's Note:**

> Every relationship in this work is platonic. If the content creators are uncomfortable with fanfictions, I'll take it down.  
> I wrote this instead of sleeping, soooo... have fun I guess?

The night before the final battle was cool.

Stars looked down to the world, blinking in tiny beauty, and the moon painted the trees silver. A gentle breeze let grass rustle, like a childish laughter; whispering of nature. The river which led to Manburg sung it's lullaby of quiet lapping. Somewhere a lone bird crossed paths with a cat, but they just nodded and smiled. Tonight was peaceful. Tonight was the silence before the storm.

Inside of the ravine, it was even colder and even quieter. The light of a small fire the group had made for dinner let shadows dance across the walls, unsettling omens of a dark future. The stone that was carved in memories felt hard and unwelcoming under Niki's numb body. She was the only one here; the boys were asleep in their beds without suffering from nightmares for the first time in weeks - the only time that god seemed to have mercy; or it came from the exhaustion they all felt, but the children the most. Technoblade was probably farming or gathering material or whatever he was doing instead of sleeping. Even though he had done a lot of cruel things in the past, Niki still worried for him and had told him to take care of himself, to which he had just shrugged; there wasn't a point in trying, still she did. Quackity and Fundy had gone to a place a bit further away, away from the ravine, since everything that was caused here was chaos and fighting. If it was their last night before everything went downhill, then they wanted to spend it in peace. Niki understood. She herself didn't want to leave. There was no place she could go to anyways. 

Not anymore. 

(Once there had been one.)

_I heard there was..._

She shuddered as the words came up in her mind, soft and cruel at the same time; something that only memories could be. Oh, her memories... In nights like these, the knowing of an upcoming battle choking her breath and lying heavy like the stones (of L'Manburg's walls) on her chest, she tried to soothe herself with them, but it only made it worse. Her throat burned when thinking about it; the last war she had fought in, the night before the final shot she had spent with all her friends. Gathered around a fire, just like there was a fire now... Tubbo had peacefully slept on Tommy's shoulder after sobbing himself to unconsciousness. Tommy himself had stared at the flames, their light burning like his hatred towards Dream, and still there lingered fear in his face like a growling wolf. Fundy had gazed at the stars, wonder, hopes, in his eyes; he was a proud fighter and an even prouder son of Wilbur, too young to really understand why they all looked at the right hand man with pity. Too young to be the bitter man he was now. 

Just Wilbur's son...

Wilbur... 

The name tasted like home on Niki's tongue, or at least it used to. It was salt and flour and golden evenings and laughter and music and trust... That one night before Tommy's faithful duel he had played his guitar and sung, _And even in death I'll stand brave for my love, for our story in stone is carved. Our songs are sung, never be forgotten..._ , and the flames had made his tired face soft in it's edges. Proudly she had watched him, admiring his strength while feeling the worry for him - for everyone - glow inside her chest like a small sun. 

She never worried about herself. It had never been about her. 

She just wished herself not to be alone this night, because what if it was her last? And under other circumstances she would call that wish selfish, but not today since everyone wished the same. Still no one approached one another. Too imprisoned in their own heads, it being insanity or memories or fear, in the end it didn't matter. 

Wilbur sure had a prison hard as stone. Even she couldn't break trough it's walls. 

Niki sighed and wanted to get up, leaving the rest of the fire and getting the blood to rush back into her legs. It was getting very cold. Not only on the outside of her body; there was a hole in her chest, loneliness and mourning for times that were gone hollowing her out. Once there had been a sun full of love and laughter. Now it was gone, leaving only bitterness. 

Steps approached her. 

In a disgusting instinct the old Niki had cried about she reached for her knife, only to see Wilbur standing a few metres away at the entrance to the ravin's main part. She didn't relax. A ball of trembling tension formed in her. She didn't notice holding her breath until her lungs started to burn. 

"Hello Wilbur", she said quietly, her voice a little more dull than normally but still kind. Just a little... careful. He wouldn't do anything to her she would like to believe, but with the way he acted these days she couldn't be sure. 

(Knowing that made her heart hurt.) 

"Hello... Niki", he answered and he himself sounded drained. Not for the first time she noticed how awful he looked; his face pale, the hair unruly curls hanging into dark eyes full of storms, bags under them as a result of countless sleepless nights. She had heard him roaming through the ravine even when the moon was on it's highest point. He couldn't find rest. (Little did she know, that soon he would. For eternity.) 

The way he leaned on the wall seemed as if he needed to steady himself. His clothes were torn and bloody. How different they were, the two coats he owned... The one in blue for a general she once had looked up to, a friend who lead with smart words and friendly hands. The one in brown - a man who had lost it, lost it all, including his mind. A man who wanted to end it with a blast. His words weren't smart or encouraging but harsh, the voice hoarse. His hands didn't fiddle with strings anymore but instead with wires and flints. 

She missed him. 

She missed her Wilbur in his blue coat with his sleepy laugh after nights under the stars, his music a lullaby in her ears. 

Where had he gone? 

Slowly he approached her, his hands behind his back. Niki forced herself to smile. Her chest tightened. For a few breathless heartbeats he simply looked at her and she could see the storm of darkness in his eyes, his once so loving and kind eyes, and she shuddered. This made him seem to startle, because he flinched and cleared his throat. It didn't work. His voice sounded just as hoarse as before. 

"Can... Can I sit?" 

She nodded and made space for him. He hesitated. A blink and suddenly his hands were in front of him, and in them his guitar. Her heart jumped at the sight of the instrument. Hope spread in her like golden paint on sweet evenings back in L'Manburg. Would he...? 

He sat beside her, placing the guitar in his lap as if touching it would burn his hand. It hurt. Once the strings and Wilbur were one, connected to express melancholia and joy; now it seemed to be strange to him. Niki glanced at him; he stared into the fire, the flames hardening his face in it's edges. His jaw was clenched. "Will you play?", she asked softly. Her heart yearned for it, hearing his songs again, but her mind was afraid. She didn't want to destroy her wonderful memories by seeing his lost love for quiet tunes, by feeling that he didn't care anymore. She wouldn't, couldn't bear accepting that her friend had changed so much even his music couldn't bring him back. 

He nodded and chuckled, bitter and sad. "I mean, not that it matters anymore, the whole... thing. With music, you know? I don't think it ever did. It didn't... It won't..." He broke off, lips pressed into a small line. Niki waited and watched. Her inside began to glow with a tiny spark of hope. Maybe she could...

Hesitantly his gloved fingers met the strings, softly stroking them. It sounded nice, but it was only muscle memory. There was no love for it, no understanding. Just plain plugging. Almost... heartless. 

Niki leaned back. Wilbur's gaze still was fixed to the flames. He looked... tired. The rage from the afternoon was gone. Her throat burned. 

After a few seconds of just playing mindless tunes, Wilbur began playing a familiar melody. Waves of warmth flooded her and she surpressed the stinging in her eyes. Why... How would he... 

Wilbur looked at her and began singing, voice cracked and unused but still so lovely. Her home. Her memories. 

_"And even in death I'll stand brave for my love,  
for our story in stone is carved.  
Our songs are sung, never be forgotten.  
Because our names we stick to this lovely cotton."_

His expression went soft, eyelids half closed, and Niki almost could see a shadow of the friend she used to know. Her thoughts became clearer; a fizzling light of excitement. Oh, how wonderful his voice sounded, even now after all the shouting and yelling... The sound of her past.... The sound of her nation, her home, her family, so lovely deep... Almost like a calm river, leading to a journey with only the horizon as a target...

_"Our home are our hearts, our hope is the sky  
we'll stay here forever, as one 'till we die.  
And even then I will keep singing for you,  
so gaze with me into the endless blue  
See, that is our future, so bright in beauty  
these walls to keep safe, that is our duty!  
We-" ___

____

His voice broke and Niki felt her hope shatter. He breathed in and out, in and out, staring empty eyed into the darkness of the ravine that never was his home. Then he looked at her, confusion in his eyes, and his words felt like daggers. "I... I don't think I know how it continues. I..." Suddenly the softness was gone again, the memory of the old himself vanished. The golden light in his eyes, reflected from dreams of sweet evenings turned to the dreadful sharpness. The snake of insanity awoke again after being asleep for a minute that seemed like a year. 

Wilbur laughed. Not the laugh Niki loved, one full of bubbly joy and youth, but bitter and cruel. "Did I write that? That's fucking bullshit. 'Our home are our hearts.'" He scoffed. "As if anyone in this world had a heart." 

Niki could scream at him, tell him he was insane, how stupid and ridiculous and dangerous his plans were, had he no guilt...? But that was something everyone else already did; so she chose slow words. "It's not too late to see the hearts of all the people around you, Will. We're all on your side. We'd never leave you." Silence lasted for a heartbeat, trembling like a bird in a cage. " _I_ would never leave you." 

Would she? 

He turned to her, eyes dark and full of honesty and calm sadness that it made her breath jump. It was almost scary how quick Wilbur's emotions changed, how fast he went from being quiet to loud, from peace to storm. Almost like the ocean; unpredictable and impossible to understand. 

"You, Niki... You have a heart I think, at least if you're not a traitor like the other's, but what do I know..." Again he slurred his words, something he had always done, getting lost in thoughts in the middle of a sentence. At least that part hadn't gone lost. "It's a shame you are here. You deserve better than all this shit." 

She placed a hand on his shoulder, realized how much she had missed touching him - missed touch at all. He wasn't used to it anymore as well, because he flinched slightly but then let it happen. "You deserve it too, Will", she said, knowing her words would sound like a lie to him, "we _all_ do. We all deserve to sit on a beach with the sun in our faces and just chill." She smiled, the thought making her warm. "Tommy would push Tuboo into the ocean and they'd start fighting... And Techno would complain about getting wet... And Philza would just continue with his book..." Wilbur chuckled, now leaning into her touch a little. "Tommy, that child... Never learned to not pick a fight with everyone." His words sounded warm, loving almost, his voice deep, and Niki saw what the others, especially Tommy, didn't: Wilbur still cared about his little brother. He still loved him. 

(He still couldn't bear loosing him, that's why he distanced himself. Wilbur was on a path of destruction and death, his own even, and he didn't want Tommy to go down with him. But that, Niki didn't realize until it was much later when she sat on a grave underneath a golden tree, grieving.) 

Niki didn't say much more after that but she pulled Wilbur closer into a hug and he allowed it to happen. She didn't just want to share warmth in this cold night; she wanted to make sure he was still there, her Wilbur, her president, her friend. She didn't want to maybe have to admit that he had died the day he fled out of his home, never to return. 

They sat there for a long time, the fire slowly dying out. Their breaths were deep and calm. Her heart dreamed of old days and new to come. She felt hope again; maybe she could convince him to go back. 

She didn't know he already had made up his shattered mind. She didn't know about the plans with Dream. She didn't know that this wasn't an act of apologizing or seeking comfort, rather than saying goodbye to a friend who deserved so much more than a madman. 

After Niki counted his exhales to almost two hundred, she dared to look. He was slumped against her shoulder, finally a bit relaxed, hand resting on his guitar. He wasn't asleep sadly. His eyes were fixed on a point at the wall, probably seeing a world she couldn't inside of his strange mind (she had always wondered how it was to be in his head. All the words and melodies, all the song he kept creating and erasing. All the voices that must have driven him insane.) She wished him to rest, to keep himself healthy, even though she knew he didn't care. Never had. In times of L'Manburg he had only worried about others more than himself; now he didn't worry about anything at all. 

"Niki, I think... I think I don't know what to do." 

She knew he would say more, so she waited, just holding him tighter and soothing herself with the fact that he was so warm and so alive. 

"I mean...", the same sarcastic chuckle, it sounded so painful, so _wrong_ , "don't worry, I know very well that I'm acting insane." He stiffened and sat up again, fleeing from her embrace. It felt cold. He looked at her and his eyes sparked helpless and cruel at the same. Niki had thought her heart was healed again, but now it shattered a new, piece by piece. It felt like being burned alive, only from the inside. "I know that what I'm doing is bad and crazy and something I would never do normally and I don't even know if I really want... Really want..." He stopped, blinked, as if listening to a tune Niki couldn't hear. The sudden tension in the air felt like water pressing one down. 

In the next moment, Wilbur jerked up, making her jump. "But, you know, it's all so fucked up!", he said louder. His voice now was a growl and he grabbed his head as if wanting to rip it off, pulling at his hair. "It's all so fucked up, the whole thing! I started it all and now I will destroy it, isn't that crazy? There was no point in anything! All this work gone..." 

Niki reached out, grabbing his hand. "You don't have to do this, Will", she said calmy, surpressing the urge to plead for him to come next to her and be himself again. "We will win L'Manburg back, our home. We will dance and sing again and I can bake us pies and you will-" 

All useless dreams. 

All pointless. 

All lies. 

Wilbur ripped his hand out of her grasp, stepping back. The guitar laid on the floor like a forgotten ancient item full of faint memories. "No, Niki! It will never happen again, it will all be gone! You see how much pain was caused because of me?! The boys are forced to play war, Eret is rotting in his fucking lonely castle, Fundy's gotta decide which side he is on even though he is nothing more than a child, Philza's seeing his sons killing and destroying everything around them including themselves as soon as he comes here... Your world is shattered into pieces..." She wanted to tell him it wasn't true (even though it was), that they all could be happy again (could they?), but he didn't let her. He stared at her with wide eyes and a hurricane of desperately crying darkness twirling in them. But she didn't feel scared, no. Suddenly there was just hollow, heavy sadness. "I am the villain, Niki, I realized that now. Took me losing a whole election, but I got it eventually. I need that country to go down with me, because it is mine and always will be and if I don't destroy it in order to set you all free of this fucking pain then no one will." He opened his arms as if inviting her into a hug - or as if conducting an orchestra of death. "Amazing what I'm willing to do for a bunch of traitors, isn't it?"

Niki's eyes burned again. 

Weakly she stretched out her hand again, wanting to hold him tight even though he had left her long ago. That man in front of her - he was so painfully familiar and strange at the same time. She hated it. She hated every bit of how much he, _they all_ had to suffer. How they all had changed.

Wilburs bangs hid his eyes, still she could see the little ounce of regret. His voice suddenly went softer again, bitter and so, so sad, it made her blood cry. "I'm sorry, Niki. I'm really sorry. I know that I'm crazy - it doesn't matter. I just wish I could be the man you knew once." He inhaled and it sounded as if he had been impaled, in defeated shudder. "I wish, but it's not possible." 

He turned around. Slowly he took his guitar and went on back to the tunnel which lead deeper into the ravine. Niki looked after him. Her mind screamed and was very still at the same time. Her hands burned from where she had hugged him. Even though the fire hadn't died yet she was so, so cold. 

She couldn't... 

"What if you die?" 

He froze but didn't turn around. His slender figure stood there like a ghost almost, only a shattered piece of a man once being a legend. Niki jumped from her seat, fists clenched. The dark fire of fear and sadness in her blood stung her veins. 

"What if you die?! What are we supposed to do without you?!" 

He looked back, shadows dancing their omen of death over his pale cheeks and he didn't show any emotion. His face seemed like a mask, not of porcelain like Dream's, but marble. Unbreakable. Cold. Niki's mind cried for times long gone, her bones trembling, and she looked him in the eyes but she saw nothing than a dark void of despair. 

"Death", Wilbur said, "is only a relief from this fucked up mind of mine." 

And with that, he turned around, letting his dear friend without knowledge (of: that he would destroy his guitar with Techno's axe as soon as dawn arrived; that a part of him wanted nothing more than go back to when he had sat at her counter, watching her bake; that he would cry; that he would hesitate down there in that fateful room, thinking of her; that he didn't plan on living for another night; that one of his last thoughts would be the memory of her warm embrace) and with a lot of pieces of her shattered golden world to pick up. It would be pointless. They would just cut into her palm and make her bleed. It would never be the same again; beaches and fire and cakes and laughter and music all gone. _He_ was gone. 

And as she realized that, Niki couldn't help but fall to her knees and weep. 

The ravine's never been colder.


End file.
